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Steyr Mannlicher Model L ... no-brainer/must-buy deal is a scam!

628 Views 6 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Oakleaf
I've had my eye on a couple of these rifles which have sold in the $1300-$1600 range and have unwilling to part with that much money for them. One I just looked at was $1399 and appeared to have a refinished stock with blotchy stain and the skip line checkering was sanded to the point the that borders were almost invisible on the grip. I could easily refinish the stock but the checkering is a different story and expensive to have redone. The logical side of my brain says I shouldn't have to refinish a $1400 rifle to look presentable. I tried to negotiate the price down to cover someone restoring the checkering but the seller wouldn't budge but $50.

So this Model L comes up in a google search ... for $600. Good Golly Miss Molly!

Wood Shotgun Air gun Trigger Gun barrel


The seller's website claims they are a brick and mortar gun shop with a gun range and mostly handguns and a few tactical rifles. They are offering this Steyr Mannlicher Model L in .22-250 (neat).

It appears all original and nicely kept. The description says the rifle has 85% of it's blueing intact with no real wear but some areas have taken on a plum color (rust under the blueing). There is light wear only on the stock. The plum discoloration actually adds a lot of character on a vintage rifle.

The ad describes the barrel rifling as excellent but having some frosting from the muzzle down about 4". According to the description, they test fired w. a 6x scope at 150 yds and got consistent 1-1/2" groups. The ad referenced pics of the bore and the test targets but none were shown which struck me as odd. I emailed and requested the additional pics and got a cheerful "Thanks, yes the gun is still for sale" reply and no mention of the pics.

At $600 asking price it sounds like a no brainer to me but the condition of the rifle, the price and the response to my inquiry had my "spidey senses tingling". I googled "who is HomelandGunShop.com?" and found a link to a Scam-Detector.com inquiry of the company. They are a fraud of course. I also checked them at Reddit and found multiple complaints of fraudulent transactions.

"When something looks too good to be true, it usually is too good to be true" wins again. Add HomelandGunShop.com to your "no-fly list".
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I'm never surprised by the incredible amount of scam sites when it comes to firearms, and especially ammo.
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I have not been scammed so far. I usually deal with same places that I know are legit and been around for awhile and well known by others. I never order from an unheard of site. Glad you did your homework and found out about them. Thanks for sharing.
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Another good place to check is the Better Business Bureau.
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If you look closely at lower RH corner of the pic you can see the partially cropped out remainder of the red, white and blue GunsAmerica.com watermark/logo where they stole the pic from.
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Another good place to check is the Better Business Bureau.

I've run across a couple scam sights including a scam CZ USA website.

Things that immediately stand out to me are ridiculously low prices and pics that have been stolen from other sites and resized to fit their layout. In some cases, they do a lazy resize (click and drag one corner diagonally towards the other) and get a wildly out of proportion pictures though this site isn't so bad.

The real kicker is you can find no physical address listed on the website. Additionally, they list a whatsapp? phone number that is a cellphone app providing anonymity to the owner. This anonymity is necessary when they "ghost you" after not shipping what you've paid for.

You can check the BBB but without an address, you have to scroll through all the BBB gun shop and there are a lot of them and they are likely emboldened by that. By doing a google search by gunshop name, brick and mortar stores will typically turn up in the Yellow Pages or Yelp but if they are an internet storefront only, they will not. In the case of Homelandgunshop.com, ratings from Scam-Detector.com were available and also reviews by Reddit users recounting how they were scammed.

The real corker is their sales interface on their site. You enter your address and make your credit card payment and they claim they will ship your gun to your home! No mention of requiring your FOID or your FFL's current license and address for shipping. Different states have different requirements, but an FFL is typically involved on an out of state transfer. Additionally, even tough there is the one rifle listed, their sales system lets me put as many as I want into my basketand pay for them. No sales tax or shipping is applied either.
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You can do a Google Image search to see if they stole the pictures from somebody else. A lot of times these same pictures will have been used fifty different places online, and all of them will claim to own the item.
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